US Libertarian Racism

Submitted by wes.whitman on 2018, October 23 - 00:00

Murray Rothbard and Russell Kirk were brilliant intellectuals of the right, but they were also highly problematic. They were both walking encyclopedias. Rothbard gave us the "non-aggression principle" as a libertarian axiom. Kirk warns against insurrection and revolution. They both defend the natural law tradition. Rothbard is the founder of modern American libertarianism. Kirk founded modern American conservatism. But they also bear some guilt for Trumpism and fascism.

Kirk teaches the ideas of John C. Calhoun and Henry Adams, quoting pro-slavery and anti-Semitic passages without pausing to condemn them. Racism was always accepted in American conservatism. It is William F. Buckley Jr. who was first to push outright white supremacists out of the Republican Party. Buckley made conservatism less racist, but he was thoroughly racist himself. When African Americans were suffering under Jim Crow, being denied the right to vote, and still being shot down with firehoses, Buckley had the audacity to stand across from James Baldwin and claim that white people in America had in no way succeeded and prospered at the expense of black people!

In 1992, Rothbard, who is remembered as "Mr. Libertarian," wrote a tract titled "Right-wing Populism" which is very Trumpist in nature—and he wrote it as an endorsement of David Duke's political campaign. Yes, Rothbard endorsed a klansman.

Then look at the theonomists/reconstructionists, like R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North, with their conservative fascist agenda of imposing biblical law. Rushdoony was opposed to interracial marriage. Francis Schaeffer and other folks in the religious right movement never confronted the racists among them. Instead, they made sure not to alienate racists because they wanted the numbers—they wanted more people on their side, even if it meant having bad people in the club.

The right-wing in America has always refused to condemn racism and has also always pandered to racists in order to grow its numbers. The Alt-Right and Trumpism are the logical culmination. These various movements within the right-wing coalesced into a single movement in recent years and have now chosen Trump as their "great man" dictator. Racism is getting worse in America, so is homophobia and general stupidity. The Republican Party is no longer a conservative party. The Republican Party is now a fascist party that has incorporated all the radical fringe elements of right-wing extremism. The Republican Party is the greatest threat to liberty in the world today.

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